“We’ve worked with some coaches, but mainly our focus is football and basketball players,” Karnes said. A3 also represents Chicago Bulls guard C.J. Watson.

Karnes said it is more difficult, in his opinion, to develop an NBA player practice than an NFL player practice. Among the reasons, he said, is that there are far fewer NBA players.

“With football, you can gamble on guys who you think are going to make it on the rosters,” he said. “With basketball, everyone knows who the best players are. They know who they are when they are in high school.

“If you do research on the agents who represent the players in the first round of the NBA draft,” Karnes said, “you will see a pattern. There are about eight different groups that represent those players.”

NEW AGENCY FOR FORMER ORNSTEIN CLIENTS: New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton and free agent wide receiver Terrell Owens are among the clients previously represented by jailed marketing agent Mike Ornstein who now are listed as clients of agency Fritz Martin Management.

James Fritz is owner and CEO of Fritz Martin Management, according to the agency’s website. Fritz did not return phone calls for this story.

Ornstein is serving an eight-month sentence for two felony counts involving scalping Super Bowl tickets and selling NFL jerseys falsely advertised as being worn by NFL players in games. Ornstein was in a minimum security prison in Florence, Colo., last week.

Attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. His attorney did not return two phone calls.

Ornstein’s scheduled release date is Nov. 27, according to a public information officer for the Florence facility.

Prior to going to prison, Ornstein indicated that his sports marketing firm, Santa Monica, Calif.-based The Sports Link, where Fritz worked, would continue while he served his prison sentence. “Every one of our clients is staying with us,” Ornstein told SportsBusiness Journal in October 2010.

Calls to a previously known phone number for The Sports Link rolled over to Fritz Martin Management.

Payton, Owens and other former clients of The Sports Link were listed as clients of Fritz Martin Management on its website last week. A Saints’ spokesperson and Payton’s coaching contract agent did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Robert Bailey, who does marketing for clients of NFL player agent Drew Rosenhaus, including Owens, said in a text message, “Fritz and I both do marketing for T.O.”

In 2009, Ornstein began co-representing Owens with Bailey (SportsBusiness Journal, Sept. 28-Oct. 4, 2009). Asked if Ornstein would be co-representing Owens for marketing work when he was released from prison, Bailey texted back, “No clue.”

SIGNINGS FOR FRANCE, CAA SPORTS: NFL player agent Todd France has signed Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Harry Douglas for representation. Douglas was previously represented by agent David Rich. … CAA Sports has signed ESPN’s Linda Cohn, who for years has been one of the network’s mainstay anchors on “SportsCenter.” At CAA, Cohn will be represented by a team of agents, featuring Becky Sendrow, Andy Elkin, Tom Young and Trace Armstrong. She was formerly represented by Playbook.

The fact that there is a divide between NBA players and agents on whether to decertify the National Basketball Players Association as a union could actually help to get a deal done to end the league lockout, multiple legal and basketball sources said last week.

Additionally, labor lawyers noted last week that the decertification path being suggested by the NBA agents would be different than the method used by NFL players earlier this year in their labor negotiations and would be tougher for the NBA to challenge as a sham, as the NFL did with the actions of the NFL players.

The NBA declined comment for this story. The NBPA did not respond to requests for comment. The sides on Thursday were in talks aimed at ending a lockout that began July 1.

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NBPA Executive Director Billy Hunter previously has said the union does not plan on decertifying as a means of supporting its position against the NBA. Instead, it plans to continue to pursue the unfair labor practices charge it filed with the National Labor Relations Board against the league in May.

ESPN earlier this month first reported that agents Arn Tellem, Bill Duffy, Mark Bartelstein, Jeff Schwartz and Dan Fegan — who collectively represent about one-third of NBA players — held a conference call to discuss a different strategy: decertification. Multiple sources last week said there are more than five agents who have been talking for months about decertifying the NBPA and filing an antitrust lawsuit against the league.

The NBPA would have to be decertified for players to file an antitrust action because the players cannot sue the league while they are members of a union.

If agents are able to push for a vote to decertify the union, it could create a host of issues for the owners, foremost of which would be that there is no one with whom the owners could negotiate a new collective-bargaining agreement. It is not clear, under the decertification scenario, whether the NBPA would be run as a trade association instead of a union — as was the case for the NFL Players Association — and if so, who would run that association. The agents who have been holding discussions have been secretive about their plans.

But as for reaching a new labor deal, an attorney who is advising NBA players said the purpose of the lockout is to miss games to put pressure on players to fold and agree to major concessions. This attorney added, “If there is no union, no one can fold.”

An NBA player agent who has had conversations with but is not part of the group of agents who want to decertify the union also said the fact that agents are not on the same page as the union could spur a deal.

The agent said that because the threat of decertification is legitimate, it could bring together the owners and union leaders, both wanting to avoid what could be a chaotic and uncertain situation. “Giving the NBA and the union a common enemy, that being the agents, is not necessarily the worst thing for a negotiation,” said this agent.

The agent said that although he does not favor decertification currently, that could change if Hunter and NBA Commissioner David Stern are unable to strike a deal. He said he believes, as of last week, the majority of players were not for decertification, although a majority of agents did favor it as a strategy.

He also noted, as did other sources, that the decertification talk speaks more to what the agents believe is the best way to protect players’ interests rather than anything personal against union leadership.

Both the agent and the attorney requested anonymity, saying players were divided on the issue of whether to decertify the union.

It is not clear how many agents and how many players favor decertification. ESPN reported last week that New York Knicks guard Chauncey Billups spoke with nearly 50 players and said most of the league’s players are convinced they should not let agents lead them to decertification. The NBA agent said he believed the union gained some momentum as a result of the group’s meeting with players in Las Vegas earlier this month.

One of the reasons NBPA leaders are said to be against decertifying is because of what happened after the NFL players decertified. Although a federal court issued an injunction against the lockout, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that injunction.

But lawyers said the type of decertification the NBA agents are seeking is different. Although what the NFL players did was commonly referred to as decertification, legally it was a disclaimer of interest, meaning the union voluntarily ceded interest in representing NFL players in collective bargaining; it was an action taken and supported by the NFLPA. The NFLargued the decertification was a sham and challenged it in court.

What the NBA agents are considering is an involuntary decertification. If 30 percent of the NBA players sign a petition for a decertification vote, an election will be held, and the union will be decertified if 50 percent plus one player votes in favor of it.

Labor lawyers, including those who represent management and employees, said that if the players were able to do that, the NBA may have a much harder time than the NFL in trying to argue it was a sham action.

“They would be in a much better position if the players just voted to decertify and file their own antitrust action,” said Bill Gould, a Stanford Law School professor and former chairman of the NLRB. “No one can possibly say it’s a sham. It’s a new group ousting the old group.”

Also, if the NBA players held a decertification election, they could not on their own re-form as a union for one year, under labor laws. The NFL players could re-form as a union at any time because of the way they disclaimed interest.

The only way the NBA players could reform as a union is if the NBA gave permission for players to re-unionize. The NBA would likely do so if the players decertified the NBPA so that the league could continue to operate with a draft, a salary cap and other devices that could be seen as violating antitrust laws if they are imposed on non-unionized employees. That fact hurts the argument that such a decertification is a sham, said the attorney advising the NBA players.

“The NFL brought that up, that the players didn’t really decertify,” said this attorney. “It goes back to this ability to turn [the union status] on and off in a heartbeat. But here the answer would be ‘No, decertification is for a year,’ and the league can say, ‘No, they can do it now.’ But it makes it a lot harder to say it is a sham when the employer is the one that lets you flip the switch back on.”